Beating Cadaver
by Bombing
Summary: They thought it was sorrow. They thought it was anger. They thought it was despair. Velderoth wishes it could be any of them, at least to have a reason. But really it takes a certain coldness to do the things he's doing. A deadness.
1. Prologue

**Beating Cadaver**

**Prologue**

* * *

His left cheek feels numb. The taste of iron is heavy on his tongue and when he spits his saliva is tinged pink, contrasting the irritatingly shiny white marble floor. The specters finally stop coming, simply circling around him as if waiting. He knows why and doesn't bother to look up, his body aching all over. His head is still bowed even when the footsteps come closer. Each step makes a resounding echo like the rumble of a dragon's roar in its cave.

A large hand grabs his green hair and forces him to look straight into golden eyes. The dragon has arrived from its nest of gold.

"Huh, the rebels are getting younger," said Magnus offhandedly with a lazy smile. He's speaking normally, but the throne hall was so big that the tyrant's voice bounced off the grand walls. "Not bad though. That's a good number of Specters you took down."

Before Velderoth could even blink, Magnus's sword is on the young Novan's neck. "This is the part when you give me a speech before I kill you. Maximum two minutes, tears and yelling are perfectly okay, and be honest - no point in lying if you're going to die." He makes it sound like it's an audition and it might as well.

Though his heart pounds in his ribcage, Velderoth calmly answers, "I want to join you."

"Everyone does," the tyrant replies, yawning exaggeratedly. "The perks of being king. Popularity."

The pressure on his neck increases and the young Novan can feel the blood streaming down and wettening his collar. Maybe it's because he half expects he's going to die here that he's not panicking as much as he thought he would. That he can manage to keep his face straight.

"I want you to teach me how to fight."

"Just now you killed your way through into the throne room," Magnus immediately says, rolling his eyes. "Honesty. Really, is it that damn hard?"

Velderoth hisses," I _am _honest. You defeated Kaiser and Angelic Buster with one slash of the sword, and I want to learn _how_."

Magnus tilts his head. "The blue brat and the pink kitten?" Then he grins. "Oh wait, now that I think of it, you do look kinda familiar. The green hair, the green - " he pauses, "-ish wings. Stood by while the new Kaiser got his ass whooped." And it takes everything for Velderoth not to scream, not to lunge forward to strangle Magnus right then and there. Magnus is a hundred times stronger than Kaiser so what chance does he have? He needs to stay in control. "You were there...which means you're from the Pantheon."

The dark Novan chuckles, smile wry. "Why in the blazing hell should I take in a traitor?"

"Because I've got no reason to betray you."

"But you have reason to betray Nova."

_Never. _

"All I want," Velderoth says," is to beat Kaiser one on one."

It's a big fat lie. He was angry at himself, angry at the war and took it all onto Kyle even though Kyle doesn't deserve it, but he can't go back now. And what does Magnus know? As long as the tyrant hears what he wants, Velderoth should be fine. Can live a little longer and do a bit more than any of the idiots in the Pantheon could ever do. Can strike at the perfect time and make the change that everyone needs because obviously everyone is too afraid to take the risks for reconnaissance.

"If I can beat Kaiser, then I'm satisfied."

Magnus snorts. "And what did Kaiser ever do to you?"

_He stole my girlfriend, he's a bully, he's an annoying show off, he ate my french fries. _The green hair Novan thinks internally, a thousand excuses flashes through his mind. _Toss a dart. Spin a wheel._

Velderoth opens his mouth to say it's revenge - the classical excuse, can back it up with a sob story and maybe spin it up by throwing Angelic Buster in there somewhere. She could be the stolen girlfriend. Whatever works.

What slips out instead is," He was my best friend." And Velderoth clamps shut, surprised. Didn't mean to say that at all except it feels perfectly right to say it.

Magnus looks as surprised as the younger Novan feels. The tyrant's eyes widen and the sword on Velderoth's neck stills. A forever passes by within the seconds until Magnus throws his head back and laughs. It sends chills through Velderoth's spine of the genuinity because during battle Magnus was laughing too, and it sounded nothing like this. The tyrant lets go of his hair and stabs his sword into the ground with a quake, using it as support as he bends forward to wipe a tear from his eye, breathless.

"O-oh gods - seriously? That is the funniest and most ironic shit I have heard since..." Magnus shakes his head. "Damn, it's been way too long."

Velderoth doesn't know what to say. Stares blankly like anyone else would.

"Doesn't matter anyway," the tyrant dismisses. He's calmed down but he's still smiling and the mirth is still in his eyes. "You know what? You're pretty fucking hilarious. I like you."

The king of Heliseum turns his back and snaps his fingers, the Specters surrounding the two backing away and moving on. The throne room becomes empty by the time Magnus slumps into his throne, hands on the back of his head. "What are you sitting down there for? Go back down the stairs and keep going down the hall until you find a room - probably on your right. Get a good night's sleep. I'm going to teach you to kill your best friend."

Magnus unleashes another string of laughter and it stays in Velderoth's mind even when he's out of the throne room, found the room and tucks himself into the covers, wondering what he's gotten himself into.

* * *

**A/N: **This story will be a prologue plus three chapters. Story takes place after Velderoth leaves the Protective Shield of the Pantheon. Not sure when the first and second chapter will be updated, but the final chapter will be updated with Gnossienne (my other story) is in Part 3 for certain reasons.

Thank you for reading.


	2. It Blinks

**Beating Cadaver**

**Chapter 1**

**It Blinks**

Heliseum's Citadel is every bit what the stories back in the Pantheon say: grand, majestic, the pure representation of the land of dragons that is Grandis. White towers that grab for the sky, unwavering to the harsher winds that follow the clouds high up there. greedy to hoard all that can be hoard, with golden buttresses as if to say that nothing can shake the castle.

Spiraling stairs, every part of the castle is connected from all sides except the throne room and the rooms that surround it. Even the labs and the art rooms have three entrances, at least one is a trap door.

Magnus's quarters is separated like a god over his people. That, and it makes it harder to assassinate him past the thousand guards on the way to a lone, single entrance. That's not even including the seal that hums over the door. Paranoid is an understatement.

Velderoth's is just separated from the world for no reason.

Not that it bothers him – well it would have bothered him a lot any other time but nowadays he's been thinking a lot and he needs the quiet. Silences like these are rare even when he was inside the cathedral, the one place that _should_be quiet but wasn't because he, Kyle, and Tear hung out there frequently. Playing hero, kicking Magnus out and rising the banners of Nova all over a free Heliseum. Kyle would say they will have giant, awesome statues of them in the middle of capital like the Kaisers in the cathedral (or the Magnus statues all over this place, the egotistic bastard), and Velderoth would argue that it's stupidly cheesy and Tear would grab both of their horns before they break something because they always do. It's a rule of the universe that they break something.

There's nothing worth breaking in his new room. Didn't care to study it when he first came inside because he wasn't sure he was really awake when Magnus _actually didn't kill him_ for saying that the new Kaiser was (is, Kyle still is but he can't think that way here) his best friend. Hell it felt like he was sleepwalking through a nightmare the entire journey to the capital, churning off hopelessness.

Like suicide.

But he can't sleep well now. The room is too stuffy even though the walls are three fourths windows, showing a panoramic view of the entire city of Heliseum asleep, only a few light crystals dotting the distance of silhouettes. He should be more intrigued, but here he is sitting up on the blankets and inspecting the incredibly large chamber. All the furnitures - a bed in the far corner, a large desk on the center, four bookcases with two drawers on the bottom each, a standing board in the back of the room - are white, bordered gold, and fancier than anything he ever owned in his lifetime. Above them are Magnus's red banners: a dragon's head missing a horn. Two hang next to the slotted light crystal above the desk.

Then Velderoth sees Magnus's portrait sitting high against one wall. The Novan grimaces.

No, just - no.

_Hell no._

He is _not_going to have Magnus's freaking face plastered in his new room - paranoid, self-absorbed maniac king who defeated the previous Kaiser or not. If the laughing lunatic asks, Velderoth will say he thought he saw a spider. _Everyone hates spiders._

Velderoth raises his sword behind his head and tosses it, hoping it'll make the portrait fall and explode in a thousand dramatic wooden splinters. He gets the empty space where Magnus's right horn is supposed to be. The sword is stuck on the painting and neither weapon and portrait fall.

The green haired Novan glares at the painting wishing he has magical powers to burn it like the infernal pits of hell. Painting Magnus keeps smiling. The asshole.

* * *

The real Magnus smiles all the damn time too. At first it was creepy but now it's just annoying. Velderoth isn't that dumb to say so at his face (or anyone's face at that matter).

Doesn't stop Magnus from distractedly asking "what crawled into your tail and died?" when they meet again in passing, Magnus doing whatever business he was going to do and Velderoth exploring, and the young Novan didn't even do anything besides giving a polite nod.

The tyrant is surprisingly sharp despite how stupid he looks. Cartalion and Piston taught Velderoth how to school his features in battle and did a good job too. Chief commander knights – what else to expect? He's emotional, they noticed, and they were hurry to say that nothing's wrong with passion. It just has to be toned down so he doesn't burn out too fast. Velderoth can laugh and yell all he wants offtime, but he can be pretty cool during a fight and it's always a fight here in the citadel even though nothing is really happening. His guard is one hundred and fifty percent up.

"You look like someone killed your favorite gerbil," Magnus observes and how is he even doing that _they barely know each other it's been only a few days_ - "Then revived it and killed it ten more times. And stole your french fries."

"I'm fine, sir," Velderoth insists, irked. They're both outside on the dry, dusty training grounds, used for rookie knights before Magnus 'cleaned' everyone out when he took over. Wide enough for half of the Heliseum Reclamation HQ knights to fit. But there's no training dummies or equipment and even though it's been a few times already the sheer emptiness is eerie...

Magnus rests his sword on his shoulder, tapping the sharpest sword Velderoth has ever seen like nothing. Grinning, the dark winged Novan says in a mocking baby voice, "Awww, maybe the widdle Kaiser wannabe killer misses home? Does he wanna go back and be buddy buddy with his very best friend again?"

- _Then_ the tyrant says shit like that and whatever dark atmosphere hanging over the training ground like a death sentence goes out of the window and trampled over, beaten over, and tossed into a frying pan. That and Velderoth's patience.

Eye twitching, the green haired boy snarls, "No, the 'Kaiser wannabe killer' wants to stop fighting Specters and learn something for once." Which he had been doing because Magnus is busy being a narcissistic asshole to teach him anything. How the hell is he going to learn what makes the tyrant idiot tick at this rate?

The tyrant shrugs. He gives a few practice swings – lazy but excellently executed to Velderoth's chagrin - with his sword in the air and says. "King, not a mentor. I can't teach for my life. So I'm going to chop off your tail and you do your best _not_get your tail chopped off." The tyrant nods. "Yeah, that should do it."

He says it so calmly as if talking about what he's going to eat for dinner that it takes a second for Velderoth to register what the man said before the tyrant dashes close, sword swinging down and the younger Novan raises his sword in time, amber eyes wide and jaws clenched, feels like a mountain weighing itself on his blade and Velderoth takes a step back, but the man follows him. Barely any time to think of strategies, to recall any practiced, swift combos to go on the offensive, this is a one-sided fight and no matter how much he hates it Velderoth knows he has _no hope of beating this guy_.

Black wings spanned out, Magnus is a relentless storm, raining blows and Velderoth loses it out of pure instinctive fear, and each clang of the swords' encounters ring in the younger Novan's skull and as soon as Magnus's sword lifts up it shoots down again.

Gasping, Velderoth yells, "_Are you trying to kill me_?!" before parrying a blow away and what the hell is he saying - _of course he is! -_and his sword going wherever a glint of light is around him, which feels like a thousand at a time.

He receives an answering laugh and Velderoth grunts, rolls to the side when the older warrior plows through, the hard ground upturned and destroyed where the sword slashed. Sweat rolling in waves and heart beating out of his chest, his knees are already threatening to fall and it hasn't even been that long, and Magnus is sighing, not out of tiredness but out of boredom. He didn't use any mana at all. "So the Specters are just getting weak?"

Scratching his messy long black hair, Magnus tosses a flat look behind him, to the distant mountains where Animas and the Flora nations are. "The blazes is he doing over there?"

A split second later there's a spray of crimson and the green haired boy stands, confused, until he realizes that the blood is coming from _him_ because he now has a bloody shoulder, redness dampening the torn through shoulder pad. His eyes widen, his breaths quicken, he wobbles a little and grasps for his shoulder and flinches when it stings. It doesn't seem real. He didn't even _see_ Magnus moving at all, who's just standing there with his fatass fancy sword tapping over his shoulder. When Velderoth gives in, makes a noise, the bastard lightly smirks but it doesn't reach his eyes because this is just a game isn't it? It's a game but he's not having as much fun as he wants because Velderoth is _weak _and _boring_ -

Velderoth roars. He charges straight to Magnus, golden eyes blazing, and swings with all of his might against the tyrant. He doesn't think, tries to hit wherever Magnus's sword isn't than where Magnus's sword is going to be. It doesn't matter if this is suicide and he might get sliced into a thousand neat pieces after this – if he can lay a deep wound into the annoying bastard then he can die content. He doesn't even see Magnus anymore, his anger so great that it blurs the edges of his vision into white, just slashing away.

Magnus kicks him in the stomach and Velderoth flies off. He hits the ground with an 'oof' and cleches his eyes, turning to his side to clutch his belly tighter. He opens his eyes and tilts his head upward, biting his lip until it bleeds because damn it if he gives Magnus the satisfaction of hearing even the smallest of whimpers from him. The tyrant is right above him, looking down with a small frown…until the black haired man stomps his steel boot on Velderoth's face, cackling. The boot twists on the Novan's face and it feels like Magnus is grinding his teeth through his jaw.

"Not bad, kid. You laid a chink on my armor. That's more than the baby Kaiser and kitten ever did." Then there's a short silence, as if Magnus is contemplating something. "That's more than anyone else ever did. Huh. Kudos for you, kid."

Velderoth grumbles underneath the foot.

Magnus puts his hand by his ear as if it'll increase his hearing. "Huh? What was that? Speak up. Your face is kinda under my foot."

Velderoth finally shoves the damned boot off his face, and sits up quickly. With a fiercest glare he can manage, he snarls," I _said _that's _nothing_!" He crosses his arms and winces. Now that the adrenaline is slowly dissipating, he feels the full force of the pain given by his fucking majesty, Magnus – yay. He's going to die with bruises on every inch of his skin. The green haired boy turns his head and mutters, "I wanted to chop your head off…"

Then Magnus did something unexpected. The tyrant comes over and slams his hand on top of Velderoth's head and then…messes it up. Ruffling it like Cartalion and Piston did sometimes when Velderoth comes up with a decent strategic maneuver back in the Pantheon. The Novan blinks.

"Awww, you're adorable," Magnus coos, still wearing that shit eating grin. "You're like the little brother I never had. Wanting to chop off my head and all." Another chuckle.

Velderoth reddens and grabs Magnus's fingers, trying to ply them off. "Shaddap! I want to kill you!" The Novan shuts up immediately, eyes bulging because oh crap he said it now, he really said it now and Magnus is _really _going to slice off his tail. It's execution time.

But instead the tyrant's grin grows even larger. "And _that's_ why you're an adorable little brat." He slaps the smaller dracanic's back and Velderoth doubles over, hissing in pain. As Velderoth sits there, counting all the injuries he has so far – a still bleeding shoulder, maybe a sprained arm considering it's pulsing in a way that's unnatural, and maybe a fracture or two in his left wing – the king of Heliseum and lunatics everywhere walks away, waving over his shoulder with a cheery, "Keep dreaming big, little guy! I won't chop off your tail today." Then a shrug. "Maybe next time when I get bored. Anyways, training's over!"

Magnus walks back into the citadel. Velderoth, however, sits in the center of the settled, dusty training ground with a tail intact and a blank stare. What just happened?

The Novan slowly stands up, wobbling and vision going blurry. He lost quite some amount of blood hasn't he? There's a puddle below him – yeah he lost some blood. He needs to go to the infirmary. And…

And what? He's still alive? Again?

Velderoth walks back inside, staring at nothing and he trudges over stairs and seemingly never ending corridors. He lost control back there. He actually flew off the lid and went berserk. It didn't do anything to Magnus, which is freaking annoying by itself, but Velderoth can't remember when was the last time he actually fought that hard, or felt so desperate to do anything.

And that moment when he let it slip that he wanted to kill the tyrant right at the man's face…he actually felt afraid to die. Even battling he was afraid he was going to die. Which is stupid because he told himself he didn't care, this whole thing is a suicide mission – wait, he's trying to get information, what is he thinking? What _was_ he thinking? Velderoth can't even remember anymore.

No. No, he's just lying himself, or it's the adrenaline still messing his head. Dragon instincts declare he has to live no matter what. Something like that because he really didn't care before and _now _he does. And when he goes into the infirmary and, of course, no one's inside but at least there are plenty of medical supplies for him to use, Velderoth feels ashamed for wanting to live.

"_That's more than anyone else ever did."_

Velderoth bashes his head against a wall, ashamed. For feeling a bit proud of himself.

* * *

Velderoth doesn't spar against Specters from that day on. Velderoth fights against Magnus whenever the tyrant gets bored of sitting in his throne too long.

It takes weeks for Velderoth to get decent enough so that the tyrant at least bothers to put his guard up more often. The Novan doesn't know what Magnus's weaknesses are and doesn't know how the traitor communicates with Gerald Darmoa.

But he feels himself getting stronger so that's something.

* * *

There's a bunch of books in Velderoth's new room and Magnus won't get bored enough to spar until a few hours later and apparently there are some basic rules the Novan has to abide:

One, he can't leave the citadel and explore Heliseum because, according to Magnus, he's a "little baby dracanic" and he'll get lost in such a "big, scary place like Heliseum." _Seriously_. Velderoth had to politely excuse himself to his room and slice that Magnus portrait in his room into splinters to _not_ kill himself by attempting to strangle the annoying tyrant right then and there. Even though Magnus would be more entertained at his predictably failed attempt but that would be worse.

Two, he can't slice anymore Magnus portraits. Victor, the artist and, to Velderoth's shock, is a ghost possessing a canvas, takes a long time painting those portraits. Reasonable since the guy is a freaking canvas so it must be a disaster to try holding a paintbrush in the first place.

"_So what if there's a spider," Magnus huffed when Velderoth gave his excuse. "Make friends with the spider. You've got no friends so you might as well start making them with bugs. Like that one saying – 'dragons of a scale crap a whale.' Something like that."_

_After being sufficiently compared to a bug, Velderoth bowed politely with a "yes sir" before storming into the training field and tore through a good twenty Magician Specters. _

Three, he's not allowed to kill anymore Specters. Yeah. That's an obvious one. Until Velderoth learns that the Magnus can receive an endless supply of Specters from Darmoa anytime the one horned maniac wants to. After having a mini despair moment because - okay, how in the blazes can Nova retake Heliseum when Magnus practically has an ever growing army? – Velderoth asks why _can't_ he kill the Specters if Magnus can simply call up Darmoa and orders more as if Specters are a domestic catalogue item. The green haired boy needs to take his stress off on _something._

"_Because I said so," stated Magnus simply. Then the traitor grinned. "You're starting to act less like those tight ass knights back in Nova."_

"_Thank you for your opinion, Lord Magnus," Velderoth replied as stoically as he could. Magnus responded with his trademark cackle. _

Basically there's barely anything the Novan can do besides wait for Magnus to trust him enough to do more things than just ordering a bunch of Specters to fetch him lunch. So Velderoth goes through his shelves and takes a few books out, flipping through the pages.

They're all politics. Histories of financial issues of nations from Verdant Flora to Nova, social theories from names Velderoth have never heard off, and types of governments that benefit and damage the people. Cold statistics to impassionate, extreme opinions over anything that can be covered, ever.

It's all really boring.

But he still goes through every single book, flipping through the pages to see if even a single phrase catches his eye, until his finger stops and lingers over one book. A book about poisons.

Velderoth snatches it out and when he opens it he automatically goes on one page because there's another piece of paper inside. Curious, the Novan holds the paper delicately and dusts it off, coughing a little.

It's an old drawing. A really bad, old ink sketch. It looks like three stick figures with really big heads holding hands, each head with a different hairstyle and differently curved horns. The figure on the very left is definitely a girl since she has long hair and little curled marks on her dot eyes. The figure on the very right is a guy but he appears upset. There are thick drawn lines like a "V" on the figure's forehead and his mouth is curved downwards.

The figure on the center is a boy too. His eyes are upturned and he wears a big smile. His short hair is colored in black.

There is a huge black "X" across the girl.

They're not the Heliseum Reclamation gang. They're not Tear, Kyle, and Velderoth. This drawing doesn't apply to them. Except Kyle became Kaiser and Velderoth joined the knights, so what happened to Tear? What happened to her when everyone became obsessed with winning the war after Kaiser and Angelic Buster entered the scene?

_No one cared except Fenelle. It was always you and Kyle and Fenelle who made sure no one would pick on her because she was a mutant. _

But Fenelle's too old and always so busy. Now who protects her when everyone is gone? Is she okay? Or is she like this girl in the drawing – crossed out from the picture, gone from everyone's minds?

Velderoth turns the paper around. On the lower right corner, there's a small note in large, messy writing – as if the person wrote it on the ground: "Me and Magnus and Traian!" A small heart next to it.

_The girl is crossed out._

It doesn't matter it mentioned Magnus. It doesn't matter if it implied that Magnus is more than just some maniac traitor who used to have friends – had some history like everyone else. Velderoth should be more concerned with that, try to find out if the tyrant's weakness is actually something sentimental. Because it might as well said "Me and Kyle and Velderoth!" and that's what it says to Velderoth. He can see it. Tear taking out a piece of paper, Tear drawing herself and her friends, Tear writing a note with the stupid heart on the back of the paper all smiling and giggling like the happy idiot she is.

Tear crossing herself out when she's alone because Kyle and Velderoth would never do that to her, never in their lifetimes so only she would do that to herself.

Velderoth slides to his knees, clutching the edges of the picture until it crinkles. The paper doesn't rip, but the ink blurs.

* * *

The page in the poison book where the drawing was has an icon of five skulls above a picture of a small, purple vial. According to the book, the more skulls a poison has the more deadly it is. Five is the maximum and means absolute death. No cure. No chance of survival.

Velderoth goes through every page in the book, but the only poison that has five skulls is the one where the drawing came from. He looks at the list of ingredients and knows immediately that it's impossible to get a hold of them. Six legged dinomanders only reside in High Flora, green camelopard's hair is renowned even in a small place like Nova to be extremely difficult to retain potency, and most importantly a Piece of Light. A Piece of Light – just the smallest chip off a specific stone claimed to be Aiona's creation. Said stone only grows around Aiona's shrine which is, of course, in Verdant Flora.

Velderoth thinks of Gerald Darmoa, the fallen prince and Transcendent of Life who seized the northern half of Grandis, where rumors state that corpses walk around, searching for a soul their master can't give. Velderoth thinks of Chronica, the Transcendent of Time in which the tales said attempted to fight against Darmoa – and failed. Velderoth thinks of Aiona, the Transcendent of Light, who nobody even knows what happened to. One thing for sure, she isn't around to give anyone any answers, less alone any hope.

Then for the first time in his life, Velderoth wonders what is the point of trying to salvage a world where its gods have failed.

* * *

"Lord Magnus, I have a question."

The betrayer looks at Velderoth lazily from his throne. Then the tyrant grins, increasing his pitch as if to mimic Velderoth to the Novan's chagrin. "Am I allowed to leave the citadel now that I'm promoted? Am I allowed to play with some girls now that my horns are a bit more curled? Am I allowed to ransack the kitchen to see if the chefs are really hiding the french fries from me?"

Velderoth's eye twitches. "I was going to ask why you became a king when you don't bother with the city."

Sometimes officials dressed in the highest ranking robes would enter the castle and confront Magnus. They would talk about the city's state, attempt to negotiate to reform it, to improve it for the sake of a town that's under the whims of one maniac. Velderoth would watch Magnus hearing intently about the officials' concerns…before laughing at their faces and tell them to get out. The green haired warrior has no idea how Magnus finds politics funny.

Right now the tyrant is humming thoughtfully, though Velderoth is hundred and twenty percent sure that the guy isn't really thinking about his question. Probably thinking about what he's going to have for lunch. Just when Velderoth thinks he's never going to have an answer, the tyrant releases another long cackle, thought of another hilarious joke that he won't let Velderoth in about.

Then the king declares, "Hey! I thought about something really funny."

Of course he did.

Snickering, Magnus points at Velderoth and says," How about you be the king of Heliseum? Sit on the throne and take control for as long as – I don't know. Until you understand the joke."

What.

Velderoth stares numbly at the murderer of the previous Kaiser, Gerald Darmoa's proxy, the tyrant of Heliseum who can slay down any man with a single swing of his shredded sword – and asks the universe what in the blazes goes on through the tyrant's mind as Magnus laughs and laughs, the sound bouncing off the cold, grand pillars that hold up the king's hall of the citadel.

The next day, Velderoth is standing on a platform in the center of Heliseum with rows and rows of eyes of thousands of people looking at him. He can't even enjoy the fact he's seeing Heliseum outside of its castle for the first time. Because Magnus slaps on a crown on Velderoth's green hair, stuffs a fancy scepter into Velderoth's hand, and announces with a grin so bright that it puts the stars into shame.

"Hi guys!" Magnus booms cheerfully to the entire population of Heliseum. "This guy here? He's my right-hand man. I'm a bit bored of what's going on around here so I'm going to back off and let this guy be in charge. Here's Velderoth, the new temporary tyrant of Heliseum!"

As Velderoth wonders how reconnaissance has transformed him into carrying the highest social position in the capital of Nova, the damned tyrant leans close to the younger boy's ear, laughing, "Good luck."


End file.
